Pizza on a Charcoal Grill

July 9th, 2010 Bart

This one was absolutely amazing. I was browsing through my copy of Weber’s Big Book of Grilling, and found a recipe for grilling a pizza on the barbecue without using a pizza stone. I’ve made home-made pizza many times before, but I’ve always used a pizza stone and baked the pizza in the over. Recently, we’ve had a major heatwave in the North East of Canada/US, and it’s been a major scorcher. So… rather than firing up my oven to bake the pizza pie — and make make my house already hotter than it was — I decide to grill the pizza directly on the barbecue. The result:

Making Pizza on a Charcoal Grill (without using a pizza stone)

Absolutely delicious. I actually made two pizza pies in this video; a ‘deluxe’ pizza with pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, mushroom, olives, and red onions; and a Hawaiian pizza, with bacon, mozzarella cheese, and pineapple. Follow the link for the complete recipe and video of my pizza grilling adventure.

High Definition Video Presented Here:

Preparation time: 1 hour

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Serves: 4 to 6 people, depending on portion size

Pizza Dough Ingredients:

1 package (2 1/4 tsp of undissolved pizza dough yeast)

1 cup of all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp sugar

3/4 tsp of salt

2/3 cup of very warm water (120-130 degrees F)

1 cup of cornmeal

3 tbsp olive oil

“Deluxe” Pizza Topping Ingredients:

1 can of Pizza sauce

2 cups of grated Mozzarella cheese

3/4 lb of Peperoni

1/2 red onion, thinly sliced

1 cup of diced mushrooms

1 green pepper, thinly sliced (julienned)

1 cup of green olives (dry and rinsed of brine, as it’s too salty)

“Hawaiian” Pizza Topping Ingredients:

1 can of Pizza sauce

2 cups of grated Mozzarella cheese

6 bacon strips, partially cooked

2 cups of pineapple bits (canned or whole pineapple, chopped)

A few glugs of olive oil

Make the pizza dough per the directions on the package. From my Pizza dough package, the instructions called for mixing dry ingredients, then adding water, and mix well until blended. Once blended, add enough all-purpose flour (additional 3/4 – 1 1/4 cup) to make a soft dough. Dough should form ball, and will still be slightly sticky. knead pizza dough for 4 minutes.

Take dough ball and using a rolling pin, flatten pizza to desired shape (round). Transfer to a cutting board (I used a pizza stone to carry my pizzas) which has been dusted with cornmeal. Transfer pizza dough from cutting board directly onto grill which has been pre-heated to at least 400 degrees F.

Pizza will grill from bottom side in a relatively short amount of time — 3-5 minutes MAX! — and will start to form bubble on the top. Check on the bottom of the pizza and once the crust is golden brown, remove pizza from grill, flipping it and placing onto a flat surface grilled side up.

Splash a few glugs of olive oil on the pizza and brush it on, then apply pizza sauce, grated cheese, and rest of the toppings from either of the above Pizza Topping Ingredients lists. I usually add a little bit more grated cheese on all the toppings to keep them in place.

Place pizza back on the grill and grill for an additional 10 – 12 minutes at no more than 400 degrees F. Be careful not to burn the underside of the pizza pie.